


things i knew when i was young (one day i pray i'll be more than my father's son)

by shesthesmoke



Series: spend my life as a loaded gun [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: BUT IT WASN'T, Gen, alex and kyle were friends as kids, bc he's not that much older, fairly angsty, i hope y'all like meandering, im assuming that means kyle and flint were friends for at least part of that, so now we're here, this is so short bc i've got no goddamn idea where to take it, this should've been in the episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24855598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shesthesmoke/pseuds/shesthesmoke
Summary: someoneshould be there when flint wakes uptitle from gun song by the lumineers
Relationships: Flint Manes & Kyle Valenti
Series: spend my life as a loaded gun [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1806151
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41





	things i knew when i was young (one day i pray i'll be more than my father's son)

**Author's Note:**

> it's technically the day after father's day as i'm finishing this
> 
> this fic is dedicated to everyone for whom yesterday wasn't a celebration. i hope you know you're never alone.

“Alex?”

Kyle turns his head at the sound of the voice. Waking up this soon is probably a good sign. “It’s Kyle, actually," he corrects. 

Flint squeezes his eyes shut for a second. "No, I…" he groans, "Is Alex alright?" 

"Alex and Greg are fine," Kyle answers, praying Flint won't ask the logical next question. He picks up the chart and looks it over. “Do you want me to call them and tell them you’re awake?”

Kyle's been in this situation enough times to know that this is when people's exteriors crack, right after waking up. He can't say he's not morbidly curious about what Flint Manes could possibly have hiding underneath. 

"No," Flint replies. "My dad…" 

Kyle used to think Jim and Jesse were immortal. Greg and Clay and Flint too, eventually, once they learned, one by one, to parade around like something bigger than they were. Not like Alex, always too honest to fall in line, and not like Kyle, always too in his own head. Kyle's father and the Manes men, they got things done. 

In light of recent events, Kyle knows that the question of whether the world was better for it is a different story entirely. 

"He passed away, I'm sorry."

Flint's exterior doesn't crack. Instead, he goes silent. Then, after the silence, he speaks. 

"I should've gotten to fix it." 

"Fix what?" Kyle asks.

"We should've had time, I was gonna explain it to him… we should’ve ended up on the same side."

The last time Kyle had seen Flint before Caulfield, Kyle had been almost sixteen but not quite. Flint was at his house because he needed a reference letter from Jim. It didn’t involve Kyle until he heard a crash coming from the kitchen. Flint had dropped a coffee mug or something, and it totally wasn’t a big deal, except Kyle’s last memory of him for years was the look he’d had on his face. Regret, but also a blinding hatred that couldn’t possibly be directed at anyone except himself. He'd probably wanted to curse, or apologize, or offer to buy a new one, but he was paralyzed by it.

“Do you remember when my dad died?” Kyle asks. As questions go, this one feels beyond idiotic. Flint was overseas somewhere, and Jim’s death isn’t a good comparison right now because it isn’t fresh (technically). Kyle asks it anyway, because he needs some point of connection, because he doesn’t know how to help without going back to before Kyle stopped recognizing Flint and Jim stopped recognizing Kyle and Kyle stopped recognizing himself. 

Flint tells him to shut up. 

"Listen, I just meant… it happened too quickly and we weren't on great terms. So I, uh, know how it feels." 

Flint tells him to shut up again, slower, louder, and more pointedly this time. 

“Listen,” Kyle repeats, as if saying that made any difference last time, “Learning how to be a person again after someone important dies fucking sucks. It does. And you’re going to do it anyway, because you’re an adult and you don’t have a choice.”

Kyle was shot by Jesse Manes once. He’d wanted to kill him, just like he’d wanted to kill Jim, just like he’d been willing to kill Greg and Alex (and probably Flint too) if need be. Kyle doesn’t mention this. He doesn’t tell Flint that his father died on a wild goose chase for the solution to a problem he’d invented to fix something he didn’t understand. He doesn’t tell him that Jesse had held a weapon in his hands that would have wiped the entire Manes line off the face of the Earth and that he would rather have let it run its course than admit to being wrong. He doesn’t say the last two things because Flint knows damn well what his father was. 

Kyle wishes he could say the same. 

“I talked to Alex yesterday,” Kyle sighs. “Gave him an update on you, told him that all signs pointed to you eventually making a full recovery and going on to be the next Jesse Manes. But Alex…” suddenly Kyle’s voice has been snatched out from under him and he has to go looking for it before he can finish his sentence. “Alex thinks you could be better.”


End file.
